


like winters fall on us, heavy

by clean



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Borderline Personality Disorder, Catra (She-Ra)-centric, Character Study, F/F, Gen, on GOD we gon get you some DBT skills bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24751699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clean/pseuds/clean
Summary: Why’d you do it?she’s pleading, and Catra’s hands are turning dark purple and black and chipping away in little diamonds and cubes, always geometric shapes with hard edges.I don’t know,she always wants to yell back, but she’s not sure if that’s better or worse thanin that moment I just wanted so badly to hurt you.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 70





	like winters fall on us, heavy

**Author's Note:**

> was writing an actual fic and then took a break and dumped this all onto a google doc. fair warning this isn't like...fun or anything. sometimes you just gotta cope and i am very wildly dependent on this fictional catgirl

It starts with her bed and the wall, the little cartoon-y faces etched into the side of their quarters. The metal feels like it scratches her nails right back when she claws at the drawing, like she deserves to get hurt back for hurting Adora. The sensation doesn’t bother her too much; maybe she does deserve to feel a little bit of physical pain. It’s not like things can get much worse than they already are.

The Horde’s bad. So what? That isn’t something Catra hasn’t known for years already. She just thought Adora knew that, too. But no, apparently the same people who’ve hurt Catra for years are totally fine and normal until they threaten Adora’s shiny new “friends”—people she’s just met, and even people she doesn’t know. Catra’s her dead last priority. She’ll never be at the top of her list.

Catra hates her, probably, for abandoning her. For the way she put her first for so long, too, when Adora obviously didn’t even have an ounce of care for her in return. She must hate Adora, because she feels a whole lot of things towards her and right now it doesn’t feel like any of them are good, like she’s never going to feel something _good_ towards her or anyone ever again.

Catra straightens up and pushes her hair out of her face. _Your little breakdown was stupid,_ she chides herself, looking around at the mess she's made: the harsh reality Shadow Weaver would slap her with if she was around to watch Catra’s pathetic little scene. Even if she isn’t currently here to say it, Catra’s reserved a part of her own mind to tell it like it is in Shadow Weaver’s absence. _It’s not like crying will bring anyone running back to you,_ she tells herself. Whatever. She has a promotion to strive for and people to win over and definitely no attachment to Adora, who she hates, now, who’s way beyond being convinced into coming back.

 _Some people are past saving,_ she convinces herself. _Some people don’t deserve to be saved._

*

Even after the portal’s been destroyed it’s never really gone. In fact, it’s the new star of Catra’s nightmares: appearing alongside Adora, of course, and Entrapta, and Bright Moon’s immortal queen, who Catra didn’t really know beyond the fact that it’s her fault she’s gone. She wakes up panicking every time, even after she’s started to get used to the image, even though she doesn’t really know what she’s panicking about.

In her dreams, Adora always asks why she pulled the lever, why she’d risked everything and for what. And as much as she hates to admit it, deep down, Catra knows the reason why she did it: She’d _wanted_ to hurt Adora. She’d wanted Adora to feel the same way she did, back when she’d left Catra behind, feel the same feeling as when she’d scratched the metal and the metal had scratched her right back. She’d done it on purpose. With a smile on her face, even.

She feels so, so bad about it all—not any specific part, but an overwhelming negative feeling hangs over her and blankets everything she does. And at the same time she doesn’t exactly regret it. The alternate reality, however fleeting, however unstable—that didn’t make it feel any less real. And she still got what she needed from it. The real thing she beats herself up over is letting it slip away from her.

How can she regret getting everything she ever wanted?

Catra turns over and covers her head with her pillow. Force Captain quarters are still unfamiliar and the whole regular-bed thing is still uncomfortable for her, but the move was worth it, if only to not have to see the claw marks over that stupid drawing on her wall every time she wakes up.

*

Being in charge is horrible. Being Hordak’s right-hand is lonely in a way that Force Captain wasn’t, because at least everyone could still pretend they were on the same level. Now Catra’s up a little higher than everyone else. In some ways it’s like cadet training, how she always had to do a little better to avoid getting hurt. She’s used to it.

She’s not used to being alone like this, though. Scorpia has clearly stopped making an effort at even trying to stick with her, she hasn’t answered her comms in forever, and even though Catra knows that’s her own fault she still chooses to blame Scorpia for it. _She doesn’t deserve that,_ her brain tells her, and when she says _I know, I know,_ the deep recesses of her mind tell her again and again _and y_ _ou do deserve this._

Lonnie and Kyle and Rogelio, even tired and obviously at the edge of breaking down, find their last bits of strength in each other and that makes Catra angry, too. Where’s her strength? Why won’t anyone stand by her when she’s at her worst? Why didn’t they? Does she need to dig even further to hit rock bottom? She watches as Lonnie and Rogelio engage in a heated discussion that’s probably about something stupid and not related to work or the war (two subjects with obviously heavy overlap), how Kyle nods even though he definitely doesn’t know what they’re saying. The very, very end of Rogelio’s tail curls around Kyle’s ankle and the image is the wrong side of familiar.

“Keep it moving, soldiers,” she calls out from the command center, an edge to her voice. While they all know better than to argue with her, Lonnie stares up at her for a moment before turning away. She’s not even visibly angry or upset, just disappointed, looking like she expected something more that Catra can’t begin to understand, much less give to her.

When the base is empty, Catra throws her tracker pad at the wall and it shatters. Yes, she breaks things now. It’s like the scratches but a little bit better, because those always bear the distinct mark of her own destruction. Broken tracker-pads are just that; unidentifiable splintered glass spread over the floor, just abstract collateral things.

She smooths her hair down, feeling the absence of the soft bunches of hair behind her ears. _Shadow Weaver can’t touch me anymore,_ she thinks, but that’s a lie too, because her presence lives in the back of Catra’s mind and in the corner of every room. It feels like one day she’s going to wake up and look in the mirror and her mask will have somehow molded into her entire face, and she’ll just be some sick imitation of the person she’s always hated most in the world. It’s fitting, a little bit. It’s like a circle.

 _You deserve this,_ the voice in the back of her mind reminds her. _You were always headed here._

*

The day Scorpia leaves—or, more accurately, the day Catra finds the note—she feels a mix of vindication and depression, half-triumphant that _see, she left, like you always knew she would_ and the utter despondency of _she left, like you always knew she would._

Catra _knows_ she gets too emotional too fast, but being self-aware isn’t the same thing as having self-control. Crying isn’t new to her by any means, but usually it’s just her way of getting her anger out. This time is different: it feels like if she can generate more emotion maybe it’ll make up for everything she’s done. She won’t apologize, but she does feel bad, which has to be half the battle.

Come on, can’t someone acknowledge that she isn’t simply _evil?_ Evil people think they’re right. Evil people do bad things and call them good things. The things that are too horrible to sugar-coat in platitudes they justify: it’s necessary for the _cause,_ for the sake of the bigger picture. Evil people don’t just believe they’re not evil, they believe they’re heroes.

But what does that make her, then? Catra does bad things—plans them, orders them, executes them; knows that they’re bad and does them anyway.

It makes her stupid, maybe. She feels pretty stupid crying on Scorpia’s floor when she knows she wasn’t good to her when she was around, that it’s her fault she’s gone. _I see you’re wallowing in self-pity again,_ her Shadow Weaver-replacement brain says. The voice has become less of a line of reasoning and more of an impersonation, crooning in her same sharp-edged tone. Catra’s always had a bit of an imagination like that.

 _I’m going to kill Prime when he gets here,_ she promises herself. _I’m going to kill him and they’re all going to understand that loyalty is a lie._

*

When Catra meets Horde Prime, she thinks she might not be so evil anymore.

Stupid, still. Obsessive. Over-emotional. Mean. She has a long list of people she needs to apologize to, and an equally long list of people who might never forgive her.

But not evil. She’s gotten that definition all twisted.

*

When Catra watches Hordak blink after emerging from the pool, she realizes she wants the chance to get better.

*

When it’s Catra’s turn, she’s given up by the time she’s at the edge. The floor feels so artificially smooth under her feet, the white faces and glowing green eyes surrounding her all spell out certain death, and she may have saved the princess but there’s no one here for her now and maybe that’s for the best.

She was always headed here. It was always going to end like this.

 _If I survive this,_ she thinks, _I’ll never do those bad things again._

*

Even after the war, the guilt and the blame never leave her. It’s the same dream as every other night: Adora and the portal and the unending whiteness. _Why’d you do it?_ she’s pleading, and Catra’s hands are turning dark purple and black and chipping away in little diamonds and cubes, always geometric shapes with hard edges. _I don’t know,_ she always wants to yell back, but she’s not sure if that’s better or worse than _in that moment I just wanted so badly to hurt you._ She doesn’t bother clawing at the emptiness, willing herself to not be dragged through anymore; the sooner she dies the sooner she’ll wake up.

Adora’s face is the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes—how fitting. She’s sitting up already, hovering above her with a worried look on her face.

“Hey,” she says. Her hand is heavy on Catra’s shoulder, and her thumb makes a small, unconscious circling motion on her skin. “Are you okay? You were, like, trembling in your sleep.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” she says. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

“Okay,” Adora says. “Just wanted to check. I’m here.” And with that she falls back asleep, as quickly as she has since forever. Her hand doesn’t leave Catra’s arm, which is her version of reassurance, of safety: _I’m here, I’m not going anywhere._

Catra watches her breathe. Now that she understands Adora a little better—not completely, she doesn’t think she’ll ever understand her completely, but better—the weight of her hand doesn’t feel like a chain or a shackle or a cage, or some similarly restraining thing. It just feels warm.

She closes her eyes and wills herself to fall back asleep. For better or for worse, there’ll be tomorrow. There always will.

**Author's Note:**

> title from prom - sza
> 
> i'm on [tumblr](https://englishmajorjughead.tumblr.com/) <3


End file.
